The entire movie, hell the entire franchise, supports Hiccupâs side of the argument. Grimmel is proven wrong at nearly every turn, so⊠why is he treated as ârightâ?
I canât think of a single reason that the dragons have to separate, because the movie nearly goes out of its way to show how good Berk is at defending their dragons.
Let alone that Hiccup is not doing anything to make the world better? I, with all my heart and soul, hate the phrase âThe world is not ready, yetâ
Congrats for pointing the obvious Sherlock, how you think we can have the world be ready if we DONâT make it be ready?Â
Is fucking hilarious because he should know this already; before defeating the Red Death, the village wasnât near as ready to accept the dragons, and I donât need the series to think just because that happened things would be perfect, because they hated dragons for so long. But you can make things different, to change it.Â
And you NEED to do that change. Is one of the reasons I hate the movie; this idea that you should wait things to be better.
You shouldnât, nothing happens just because; Iâm queer, and if I can say that here without being afraid of being beaten to a pulp, is because people worked their asses for it. The work is not done, perhaps never be, but damn if is not better, and that is because people FOUGHT FOR IT.Â
The world would never be ready for dragons, because nobody is making it be ready for them
I love this franchise. As a kid, I read Cressida Cowellâs books, and while they bear little resemblance to the film series, I loved them and I loved the first HTTYD movie. I was a little reluctant to watch it at first, since itâs so unlike the books, but Toothless won me over.
I adore Toothless. I love him, and all dragons, so much that my NZSL (sign language) name given to me by my Deaf friends is the sign for Dragon. There was a little part of me that was sad that Toothless, in a sense, lost his freedom and lost the ability to be a wild animal in the first movie. He chose his life voluntarily, in the end, but itâs still enjoyable to see him get to go off to the Hidden World with his lovely glittery wife and raise a family and just do his own thing for a while. Toothless isnât a pet, heâs a friend. Hiccup respects that.
As much as I enjoyed watching Riders of Berk and Defenders of Berk and Race to the Edge and all that, and the second movie, it was pretty evident that Hiccup was hit with wave after wave after wave of opposition (read: all out war). His teen and young adult years were spent risking his life, his dragons life, his friends lives, his entire villages lives, repeatedly. And they pulled it off. Hiccup is a smart, compassionate leader and pretty damn good at strategy, but Berk is one island.
They didnât seem to be awfully effective at spreading their idealogies about people and dragons. After about ten years, which other countries/islands came to their aid, to defend dragons?
NONE. ZERO. They were still in this alone, their ideas hadnât spread far, and as far as other nations were concerned, dragons were still bad.
And letâs be honest? Dragons are fucking huge. They probably stink like carrion and fish. Theyâre destructive. Itâs like living with fire-breathing horse-sized dogs, but worse. Dragons are cool, but living with them is not easy and itâs no coincidence that the Vikings, the first to do so successfully, are an incredibly resilient, stubborn and strong people.
The kind of radical societal change that would need to take place to make global dragon-human peace is clearly going to take a long time, and itâs no use if a) the dragons are dead and b) their biggest advocates are too.
Itâs been a pretty close call for Berk and the dragons, more than once. Toothless is literally supposed to be the last of his kind. How many times has he nearly died in this franchise! How about Hiccup, or Astrid, or literally any main character you pick?
Realistically (and yes, weâre talking about a movie here) realistically there would have been casualties of both dragons and humans on both sides. The losses would have been terrible. How many times had Berk been destroyed, again? They literally had to move islands.
So actually, I donât think itâs so bad that the dragons head off to the Hidden World. Itâs not just a hole in the ground: itâs dragon paradise, where they get to be left the FUCK alone. And meanwhile, Hiccup and his entire village can rebuild and raise kids and not have year after year after year of raids and attacks and, you know, war.
I think thereâs no way the dragons will stay in the Hidden World forever. I think Toothlessâs children will keep wanting to visit. Toothless and Hiccup will always be friends, and if Hiccup was ever in need I have no doubt that Toothless would be there in a heartbeat. I think the world will change, but it will take decades, even lifetimes to achieve peace between two sentient, completely different creatures.
In the meantime, itâs okay for them to rest. Let them be, let them multiply in the Hidden World, in a safe space where they arenât threatened by war.
Let the people of Berk rest, and think, and try to come up with ways to change the world. Honestly? Itâs pretty hard to come up with good ideas about spreading new idealogies when youâre actively fighting for your life. Itâs traumatic as fuck doing that all the time, and they donât have to do it all the time.
To cut a long explanation short: bloody revolution and fighting are sometimes necessary, but long term theyâre very unsustainable. Youâre going to end up with a fuckton of dead bodies, and you need periods of peace to mourn the dead and recover and recharge enough to carry on. Wars are fought in a series of battles. You can lose one, or retreat, and still win the war. In fact, sometimes itâs necessary to see that you need to retreat, sometimes for quite a bit, or youâll lose every one of your soldiers, and with them, everything you started fighting for in the first place.
We do have to make the world ready but keep in mind: ITâS THE FUCKING WORLD.
If your ideas havenât gained any traction, if after years of trying you have no allies, if your enemies are still after you and hate you enough to keep trying after a year of no success, if your village has been repeatedly destroyed and your childhood prettymuch replaced with military drillsâŠ.
After a decade, it might just be a good idea
to stop for a little bit, and think about a change of tactics. Because otherwise, eventually youâll make the wrong call, and youâre going to die, and so are all your friends.
If the dragons and the people of Berk are safe, for now, even if they have to be apart, itâs still better than being dead and losing the entire war.
The world isnât ready yet, and neither are they. Thatâs okay. It sucks, but itâs certainly not defeat.
Okay, Iâmma stop you right there, because the TV seriesâ arenât canon to the movie. Deanâs weirdly adamant on this point. And really, itâs probably a good thing they arenât, because hoo boy does the series shoot THW in the foot. Yes, it adds additional threats against the Berkians, but also allies, people changing their minds, dragons firmly entrenched into their ecosystem, cultures totally separate from the Berkians whose entire way of life hinges on the dragons. So yeah, letâs separate the series from the pile, because itâs a whole different slew of arguments.
SoâŠno. Berk spent six years keeping to itself, maybe trying to reach out to another island once in a while, and then Drago happens, and everything gets serious really fast. And Hiccupâs conclusion, at the end of this terrifying clash that costs him his father, is that theyâre going to change the world bit by bit and be the voice of peace.
And a year on? We see that heâs made progress to doing that.
Berkâs got so many dragons on their side, itâs becoming a problem. Theyâre not a patchy little fighting force anymore, but a force to be reckoned with. Dragoâs forces are headless, run by buffoons who, again, have made no progress. Grimmel, again, is very concerned about Hiccupâs ideology spreading and tells him so, why do you people write me essays and ignore that one very crucial fact?
And again, the movie doesnât end with a war on the horizon. Drago was the war, the warlords and Grimmel its last dying gasp, and Berk has won. Itâs a time for knuckling in and spreading the word, because the fact is, the Berkians have at this point made more progress in their movement than a lot of real movements make in a lifetime.
And then, because Dean wants his ending, they give up.
So actually, I donât think itâs so bad that the dragons head off to the Hidden World. Itâs not just a hole in the ground: itâs dragon paradise, where they get to be left the FUCK alone.
There is absolutely nothing to suggest the Hidden World is a dragon paradise where every last dragon regardless of diet and environment belongs, because we donât see their daily life there. And even if it somehow were, the dragons go because Toothless commands them to â literally, it emphasizes this in the script â and they canât refuse an alphaâs command.Â
A paradise that youâre forced to go to and not allowed to leave isnât a paradise. An underground cave, away from the wind and sun for the rest of your life, is not a paradise.
After a decade, it might just be a good idea
No, it wonât, because Hiccupâs new plan â the one THW insists is the best one â is to sit on his hands and wait for change, and after a decade, has made so little progress that his own children donât understand dragons.Â
Let the people of Berk rest, and think, and try to come up with ways to change the world.
Good plan, except they donât do that.
I think thereâs no way the dragons will stay in the Hidden World forever.
Of fucking course not, because if they wanted to or were meant to stay there forever, they wouldnât be living and breeding on the surface. The Light Fury, supposedly the purest dragon or whatever that means, is caught outside the Hidden World. They go because Toothless commands them to, and they have no say in the matter.
I think Toothlessâs children will keep wanting to visit. Toothless and Hiccup will always be friends, and if Hiccup was ever in need I have no doubt that Toothless would be there in a heartbeat.
Cute. Too bad Dean says the epilogue was âa final joy rideâ and not an indication that theyâll ever see each other again.
I know Iâm being snippy and impatient, but this is the kind of thing Iâm talking about, the thing I donât have the time or energy to engage with. THW is a house made of toothpicks, and Iâve yet to hear a defense of it that didnât amount to thisâŠa wildly, factually incorrect stew of headcanons.
Youâre more than entitled to that magical version of the film that exists nowhere but in peoplesâ heads, but it doesnât change the reality of what we actually got, or the utterly horrific mentality of the people who made it.
